“How can you be so sure? You act like you know everything.”
“I know Boyko wouldn’t want Tolkachevsky dead until all his stones were shipped and paid for. Would you if you were him?”
It was clear to him that they needed time to regroup, get a plan together with help from the tiger team. The enemy was multiplying, the odds against him growing: Boyko, Vangaler, the woman, KoeffieBloehm, and someone in his own government.
He decided to turn the cards.
The prey had to become the stalker.
Amber’s lips were pursed.
Tony will be all right. Boyko obviously doesn’t know what’s going on.
THIRTY-SEVEN
McLean, Virginia
Maran had paid in cash at the Hotel Florida, careful not to use a credit card and leave an electronic trail. The clerk, nevertheless, recorded the transaction manually into the hotel’s automated booking system. Immediately, it was transferred to the International Hotel Central Registration Bureau, which passed it on to the National Homeland Transportation Security System, where it was further forwarded to the Pentagon’s Office of Plans and Operations, which immediately copied the CIA at their McLean center in that posh town’s tiny village of Langley, Virginia.
The alarms went out.
He’s off the reservation. Get Maran.
UTILE NSANGOU TOOK A call on her cell phone from one of her primary government clients. Convinced that Maran was behind the diamond scam, a rogue agent, a renegade gone wild, he had a “Peak Priority” job for her.
It was in Antwerp.
“There’s a chartered plane for you at Dulles Airport. Are you ready to leave?”
“I have a dinner date; I’ll cancel and take a taxi to the airport.”
Things were moving fast. In spite of the last minute nature of the request, as an independent agent under Non-Official Cover status, she wasn’t about to turn it down. At the top of her the game, she had just left the government where her most recent job description had been a cover assignment with the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal. Her true job, however, was assassination for the CIA. She had been trained as an op who could snipe a ping-pong ball a mile away, or easily kill with her small hands in any one of multiple and simple ways. She knew what a spear-thumb thrust to the trachea will do. At twenty-seven, she worked out with weights and martial arts training five days a week at the Post gym, maintaining the physique of a college senior. After four years as a CIA sniper with its J-Zero counter-terrorist strike squad, this phone call solidified her private contractor assignment with the United States government.
Utile was on her way.
IN THE MEANTIME, Bull Luster was conducting the meeting he had earlier planned. This was the meeting Luster wanted with Baltimore who now insisted on having Stassinopoulos join them. Luster agreed. He invited Cole Martin and the CIA liaison to the Intelligence Community Management Council, Jim Newpher, who reported directly to the Director of National Intelligence. They met behind a purple painted door to an office that only those with the highest level security clearance could enter. It was located in the basement floor of the CIA’s McLean headquarters.
“Let’s face it,” Luster growled angrily. “We’ve got to win the war on Islamist terrorism before we convince the world to help, considering the flabby stance of our current foreign policy, national security under this Congress, this president. If we don’t change course quickly, the Islamists will win.”
Baltimore nodded. He glanced at Stassinopoulos. “Well that doesn’t mean we let wild cowboys like Maran loose, and let them fuck things up.”
“We do that on our own,” Luster rumbled.
“Cabinda? What the fuck is that all about,” Baltimore questioned.
Stassinopoulos glared at him. Baltimore had been his protégé before they moved him through Special Ops and up to the Pentagon’s Office of Plans and Operations.
Luster scowled. He didn’t know the explanation for Stassinopoulos’ glare at Baltimore, but he knew it had something to do with Global Coast.
“Wonderful myth,” Stassinopoulos said, looking at the wall behind him. A painting hung there, a dreamlike, Daliesque scene of Jason with his hero warriors of Greek mythology, the Argonauts, slaying the multi-headed dragon in his quest for the Golden Fleece to claim his right to the throne as king of ancient Thessaly.
“Are you familiar with the story?” he asked Luster, who shook his head.
“You ought to familiarize yourself.”
Turning to Baltimore, Stassinopoulos said, “Your sentiment regarding Maran and Cabinda is on point, however. I don’t have to tell you; it’s private military firms that carry the water today. There are 100,000 private contractors still in Iraq and Afghanistan. They supply everything military from mess halls to hired guns. Long Bow is just one.”
“And Cabinda?” Luster asked.
“We have to stop Maran,” Stassinopoulos said, shooting laser darts at his associate. “He’s single-handedly responsible for the continuing conflict in West Africa and the shit-slide of the world’s banks.” For weeks, the suspicion had been catching fire in the quiet enclaves of the intel community that Mack Maran was a rogue, out there behind the plot that was raising so much havoc.
“My primary interest is to make sure our military is good to go. I want to know what Mack Maran is up to,” Luster added.
“Noble goal,” Cole Martin intoned. “Maybe you could tell us.”
Bull Luster changed the subject. “What have you got from Congress, the Speaker?” he asked.
“Just got his copy. U.S. Security Review Commission report, foreign arms sales. Angola wants more. It’s still under review, but that would help,” Baltimore answered.
“Beijing’s still on the table.”
“Lot of guys say Chins’ve already stolen enough of our classified, dual-use technology to pose a real threat, supercomputers, advanced chip-making machines.”
“We cut this deal, it would cut DOD costs across the board, facilitate the sale of Lockheed Martin’s commercial passenger jetliners to China, ten thousand new, high-paying jobs for Americans; cut the cost of the new ‘Predator’ fighter-bombers in half for the next ten years.”
“Resourceful people, these Chins. People’s Liberation Army generals, waltzing around our tech-trade restraints. They’re already simulating warhead detonations and long-range missile launches. They can make parasite satellites attach to and kill our orbiting surveillance sats,” Baltimore drawled.
“We need this trade package. We won’t get anything from Congress if we don’t deliver on this and cut our costs.” It was the point Luster had been determined to make at this meeting.
“And it’s only passenger aircraft,” Baltimore agreed. “Funny how everything always connects.”
“How so?”
“Maran’s diamond scam could fuck this up for us too.”
Baltimore snapped. “Let’s get back to our purpose. Keep it simple. Where is this diamond scam taking us? How does it relate to what’s going on in Chicago futures, Wall Street? Does this go back to Cabinda? General Luster, are you sure you don’t know what’s happening to Mack Maran and what he is up to?”
Newpher cut in. In his mid-fifties, he wore horn-rimmed glasses, a Harris Herringbone Tweed sports jacket over rumpled flannel pants; except for his tightly clipped, still blond hair, he looked like the Hollywood image of an aging preppie.
“Intercepts from the National Reconnaissance Office show a lot of chatter between Maran and people in Cabinda and Kinshasa. We have a suspect link between him and a major criminal cartel in the region,” Newpher said. “They’re working a massive diamond scam. The worst part is the analysts at the Treasury say there’s a ripple effect between sliding diamond prices and loan defaults at some of the world’s biggest banks. If it keeps up, they expect that ripple to turn into a tsunami they say will demolish Wall Street. We think Maran has joined the cartel to team with an Abner Dolitz, major New York diamond wholesale merchant.”
“W
ho’s running this cartel?” Stassinopoulos asked.
“Good question. Best we can tell is that he’s a Georgian, former Russian intelligence officer. That’s it. No name.”
The meeting broke up. Baltimore was the last to leave. At the door, Stassinopoulos spoke to him.
“I’ll see you at my office in an hour.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Antwerp
The private Citation jet landed on the tarmac at Antwerp’s Deurne Airport. Utile Nsangou touched up a light dusting of magenta eye shadow and patted a few sprinkles of stardust on her cheeks. When she checked herself in her compact mirror, she was pleased.
Where is the man who would pass on that? Do I look like an assassin?
She replaced the compact and checked the pocketbook. Her diplomatic passport sat under the gold cigarette lighter, a lipstick and package of Kleenex tissues. It identified her as Ivy Rochelle Williams-Smythe. A rider showed her as a security officer from the Treasury visiting the U.S. consulate in Antwerp. A quick data mining search would verify that her e-mail ISP was registered to the U.S. Treasury Department.
She knew her mission was “Peak Priority” after being briefed by her handler at the Pentagon. Diamonds were flowing out of the DRC through Cabinda to the diamond cutters in Antwerp. It was currency in play for a massive arms broker ring. He told her that it took the Treasury time to figure out the source, but now they were certain. A former member of the top-secret SAWC unit had turned traitor. No one knew how he was doing it, but evidence indicated that he was working with his old special ops buddies to deliver advanced U.S. arms to Grigol Rakhmonov Boyko, a former East German STASI officer in West Africa. The scam included flooding the markets with blood diamonds. She would be joined by another shooter, a Treasury agent.
Mack Maran had to be turned—or terminated.
SOME TIME EARLIER, MARAN had received two messages.
The first, an e-mail looking very official, originated by Pajak posing as a State Department security official and routed through Utile’s computer notifying Maran that a Treasury official identified as Ivy Rochelle Williams-Smythe was on the way to discuss the situation with him at his hotel. The second message was a cell phone call from her.
“Call me,” her voice said.
Maran punched the REPLY button on his cell. Before he had a chance to ask a question, she cut in: “Forgive this sudden intrusion. I’m on my way in to see you, booking a room at your hotel—the Florida?”
Maran was stunned.
The hotel clerk!
“This investigation’s high priority for the Treasury Department. The diamond industry has been listed as a Class One national security priority,” Williams-Smythe said.
“What’s that got to do with me?” Maran demanded.
“I hope you’ll tell me. You’re on your own, a singleton. Hope you’ll share what you’ve found with your government. Your hotel has its own restaurant. Supposed to be pretty good. We can kick it around over steak frites, glass of wine—Uncle Sam’s dime, shall we?”
“Fine, but not there. The Chez Biarritz on Rue Royale,” he said, having noted it safely distant from the Hotel Florida
THIRTY-NINE
Georgetown, Washington, DC
Following their meeting in McLean, Baltimore dropped Luster off at the Pentagon. He drove into Georgetown to park in the garage of an office building on a corner of Wisconsin Avenue. He walked up the steps and through the large glass turnstile entrance doors into the marble terrace on the ground floor and entered the elevator and pressed the button to the seventh floor office of Global Coast Oil International Company, Inc. As he left the elevator and turned right, he could see below the name over its doors, a subtitle that read The World’s Source for its Energy Needs. A trim secretary greeted him in a straight black skirt and short heels. She led him into a conference room where three people in business attire sat waiting for him at the table, on which sat a chrome pitcher of water and a coffee pot accompanied by clean glasses and heavy mugs.
Stassinopoulos greeted him and introduced White House Chief of Staff Margaret-Anne Ryan-Colby, a pasty redhead about forty years old. The wear of her career showed. Her complexion, chalky white with a faint strawberry blush, fanned her high, bony cheekbones. Like her boss she saw support of Bombe’s Angolan government as key to her own success.
“First of all,” she started. “I speak for President Valentine who wants to thank all of you for your enthusiastic support. Minister Johnson, without your organization’s network of black churches and the millions in small campaign donations you directed to our campaign, it would be difficult to be in the leadership position we are in today. The Executive Office is effectively cementing relationships in Western Africa, the Middle East, the Arab and other Islamic nations.”
The Reverend Ishmael Malik Johnson made a courteous bow. As minister of Detroit’s largest Baptist church, he wielded immense influence over a huge spring of political campaign contributions. As founder and Executive Director of the Multi-Ethnic Affiliated Green International Coalition, known as MAGIC, he could deliver the combined 43 presidential electoral votes from Michigan and Illinois. He also had a direct link to one of Africa’s largest, though least-known public charities, Hum-Assist International—Boyko’s public relations front.
President Hope Valentine had no idea of who ran that charity. Nor that she owed him. But, in exchange for his commitment to the Valentine presidency, Johnson had been appointed the U.S. State Department’s Civilian Liaison for Human Rights in West Africa.
He looked at Stassinopoulos and Baltimore.
“We plan to get the facts out. America needs to hear them. We’re in the process of arranging interviews—Bill Maher, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow—we’re even including Chris Matthews—when Luis Gomes comes for his White House visit,” Ryan-Colby laughed. “Maybe we’ll shoot a tingle up his leg,” she added, in reference to a quote he had made about his reaction in Matthews’ earlier interview with the president.
James Ingersoll, the new U.S. Ambassador to Angola wasn’t present. It was clear to all that this was strictly a political meeting.
“We have recently celebrated U.S.-Angola Day at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars,’ Ryan-Colby continued, ‘we have always had a close relationship in energy and natural resources, including diamonds. American business has been a major investor in Angola; that’s why President Valentine has posted an advisor from our Department of Treasury to our embassy in Angola. We recognize what a shock it was to the economy with the recent collapse of diamond prices and that factor’s negative impact on KoeffieBloehm and the entire minerals mining industries and their dependent money center banks around the world. Our main goal is to help President Valentine promote more business cooperation between the U.S. and African government and private sectors. Oil production is dependent on economic and financial stability and access to that oil is still paramount and will be until we large consumers in the west put adequate sources of alternative energy on line.”
Baltimore spoke. “Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, may lead us into much larger global conflict and not simply an economic one. China has current population one-point-three billion and she can’t afford to let them go without energy, transportation or electricity.”
“We at the White House, you know, want to awaken the American people to the disease and hardships faced by the peoples of West Africa, as well as in the impoverished Middle East. We are working to promote a permanent peace there and to begin to promote a new prosperity throughout Africa,” Ryan-Colby said.
“How can we help?” Stassinopoulos asked. Baltimore grinned.
“Well, as you know we have planned this plenary in two parts. We at the White House want to extend our appreciation for your efforts on behalf of our nation’s national security. Without your help in assuring stability in far-off places, our initiative to work with our trade partners, like those in China and West Africa, would be for naught. Following o
ur meeting here, we will go to the Blair House for the second half of our conference concentrating on economic cooperation in support of our efforts to provide economic assistance in West Africa. We are honored to have Sir Neville Sharp-Neff, from England, and General Li Shau Yung, from China, to introduce to you.
“Perhaps I don’t have to tell you, gentlemen. There is a deep relationship between oil and diamonds in some of the Middle East economies, including in Iran,” she said. “In fact this relationship is deeper and more fragile than anyone realized until now.”
“Oil and prosperity go hand-in-hand,” Baltimore said.
“Oil’s at the heart of the economy, as well as national defense,” Stassinopoulos added.
“Oil wars, demand pressure from China and India, the Gulf War, the 9/11 attack, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Now diamonds,” Baltimore exclaimed, shaking his head in apparent distaste.
Ryan-Colby explained that the downturn in diamond pricing wasn’t only triggering a dive in global stock markets; it was causing big political problems for the president.
“This makes Hope Valentine’s foreign policy doctrine hard to sell to Congress. If we hope to guarantee peace in the Middle East and bring prosperity and health to Africa, we need the resources to implement our ‘constructive engagement’ diplomatic measures. In other words, we have to get to the bottom of the market crash,” Ryan-Colby said.
“Everyone wants to end the violence,” Johnson added. “America’s black community and the rest of the disadvantaged around the world have been hit hard. All my contacts here in the U.S., in West Africa, the Middle East, want to know that the White House is on board with us—finally.”
Johnson removed a white hankie from the breast pocket of his double-breasted, linen navy blazer. He grandly wiped the perspiration from his face.
To channel the power he had mustered, Johnson had registered a political action committee, M-PAC, with the U.S. Federal Election Commission and filed a report that showed that his group had been careful to give no more then the legally-allowed $5,000 to any single candidate in the recent elections. The loophole he took advantage of, like so many other PACs and SuperPACs, was the fact that there was no limit to the total money they could spend on ads to support candidates or to promote their agendas. Total PAC contributions in the U.S. this year alone came to more than one billion dollars.
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